What We Do
Bright Side Youth Ranch serves children and teens ages 8-18 years old that are experiencing crisis, trauma, and both ongoing and current life challenges. Those can range from anxiety, depression, anger, abuse, trauma, neglect, loss, self-harm, behavioral issues, chronic illness, to living in a high-risk environment, or any combination of above.
When we invest in the lives of children and teens, we have the opportunity to impact their future. What is packed into their hearts now is what they will carry with them for the rest of their lives. Through the mentoring sessions, we can give children and teens someone who cares, and we can love them before they love themselves.
Bright Side offers One-on-One Mentoring Sessions, as well as group sessions, for children and teens feeling overwhelmed by their emotions or problems. Our curriculum weaves in Biblical principles and helps hurting hearts process their pain in healthy ways.
One-on-One Mentoring Sessions: Finding Hope
One-on-one Sessions at Bright Side are an opportunity for kids to discover the Hope of Jesus Christ, work through their life challenges with a caring mentor, and build trust through a connection with a horse. We incorporate Biblical Trauma Healing principles into our session curriculum to foster meaningful conversations, stronger relationships, deeper trust, and authentic faith. Every child that comes to Bright Side is unique, and so our mentoring sessions are individualized experiences.
Session may include:
- Our session curriculum
- A ranch chore
- Basic horse care
- Round Pen Natural Horsemanship
- Ground work with a horse
- Grooming
- Fun activities and games
- Crafts
Requirements:
- Ages 8-18
- Experiencing life crisis
- Must want to participate
- Must be mentally, physically, and emotionally able to relate
Cost:
- $20 a session
Summer Camp
Leadership, horsemanship, team building, and riding all come together for our Summer Leadership Camp.
Dates: June 17-19, 2024 (9 am to 1 pm)
Ages: 8 to 12
Items needed: closed-toed shoes, sunscreen, water, and a sack lunch
Cost: $150
Building Resiliency Sessions
These sessions are designed as a follow up to the Finding Hope Mentoring sessions and are for returning participants. Building Resiliency is about continuing forward in growth and healing even if circumstances do not change. This is for ages 8 to 18.
School Visits
Our horses love to visit schools! We offer several options when visiting local schools: share details about horses in connection to Westward Expansion, describing horses as part of an animal unit (consumers, vision, hearing, etc), and working through anger, anxiety/depression, and healthy relationships.
Bright Side Youth Ranch was featured on WBTV news.
"It’s my favorite time of the week. I look forward to it, and then it’s hard to have to wait a whole week to come back. I love being here."